lm_jillybean

Author: Jillybean
Title: Swimming in a Fish Bowl
Spoilers: LoM S2E7
Summary: Tag, Gene and Sam sitting together. Could be slashy if one chose to read it that way. But nothing happens.


“I wish I had my guitar,” Sam said, shifting in the hard plastic chair and resting his head on Gene’s shoulder, the scratchy camel hair on his cheek.

“Oh God,” Gene groaned. He lifted his fourth flask of the evening, this one having been secreted in one of his jacket’s outer pockets. But after this token protest, he said nothing, his eyes closing slowly.

The tape player had long since cut out and only the nurse’s radio could be heard in the background, playing the kind of music that Gene and the wife had to listen to. Sam smiled slightly, lifting his hand in the air and strumming imaginary strings. He hummed the chords under his breath. “Barra ba bah, ba ba bah.” They were long and slow, the melancholic notes unheard by anyone except Gene and Ravi, sleeping on the bed.

“What is it about you and hospitals?” Gene asked, stirring slightly underneath Sam.

Sam kept humming, his fingers depressing the air.

“You always get me feeling all.” He stopped, patting Ravi’s shoulder. “How you doing?”

Ravi did not reply.

“So . . . so you think you can tell . . . heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain . . .”

Gene groaned again. “And Jesus help me, he’s singing now.”

Sam laughed. “. . . smile . . . from a veil.”

“What is that, anyway?” Gene asked, folding his arms and pushing Sam to the side. He sighed as Sam only slid to the miniscule slip of mattress that Gene and Ravi were not occupying.

“Did they get you to trade,” Sam was speaking now, the words under his breath rather than singing them, “your heroes . . . for ghosts.”

Gene took pity on him, crammed between the beside cabinet and Gene’s side. Stretching an arm around Sam’s shoulders, he pulled him up so that the younger man was leaning against his chest.

“Oh, woah oh . . .” Sam lifted the flask he’d procured from Gene’s inner coat pocket sometime earlier. “How I wish . . . how I wish you were here.” As Gene’s hand closed around Sam’s shoulder, Sam closed his eyes. “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.”

“In a fish bowl?”

“I love that song.”

“Never heard it,” Gene sniffed. He sighed and tossed his empty flask to the foot of the bed. “I don’t like it.”

“It’s about . . . a good friend,” Sam said quietly. “He went mad, the writer never saw him again.” He shifted the chair to keep from falling off it. “It’s such a beautiful song.”

“Nonsense,” Gene said quietly. “Beauty doesn’t come from pain. It’s never come from pain. If it was my life would be a bloody painting, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s not beautiful because it’s about pain,” Sam said, his fingers still working the imaginary fret. “It’s beautiful because I understand it.”

“That’s you down to a tee, isn’t it? What you understand, you like. I’d rather things stayed a mystery.”

“So then you wouldn’t know why your brother chased after that high that killed him?”

Gene stiffened under Sam’s back and Sam tensed for a blow, but it never came. “The understanding,” Gene said quietly. “Is worse than the not knowing.”

“You wouldn’t do it,” Sam said quietly, his playing fingers went to the flask resting on his stomach and he moved it surreptitiously.

“Wouldn’t I?”

“No. I trust you.”

“No you don’t.”

Shifting so that he was at least facing Gene, Sam raised his eyebrows. “I handed that hammer to you, didn’t I?”

Gene let out his breath in one big sigh, his eyes studying Sam’s face. “Yes,” he said slowly. “But you were calling my bluff.”

“No,” Sam shook his head. “I trust you, Guv.”

Tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, Gene fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He had to work his hand under Sam’s body to do it, and Sam arched upwards, settling himself again when Gene had found what he was looking for. Sam let his hand finger the fretwork again.

“I think you are, essentially, a good man,” Sam said.

“And I know you’re drunk.”

“Maybe I am.”

“So,” Gene said, shifting his arm so that Sam had to sit closer. “Tell me about this girl of yours.”

A little, mirthless laugh escaped Sam. “No,” he said.

“Go on. You said you loved her. You must have something to talk about.”

Closing his eyes, Sam pressed his lips together, a tiny smile curling the corners of his mouth. “You’ll call me a poof again. For loving a woman, oddly.”

“Oh don’t make me beg.”

“She had . . . beautiful hair. It tickled.”

“Bloody hell.”

“And lips, she was always smiling, even when she was sad. When she was happy, she lit up the room.”

“I’m getting bored.”

“Fine. Knew you’d be like this.”

“You’re so bloody predictable. Tell me her arse was nice.”

“It was.”

“You’re just saying it though.”

Sam pushed up onto his elbows, shifting around to look Gene in the eye. “That song is also about being disillusioned with the world.”

Raising his eyebrows, Gene blew smoke in his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His facial muscles working to disguise his amusement, Sam shook his head. “Nothing.”

“No, if you have something to say, by all means, Tyler.”

Sam swallowed, his eyes tracking down. “Gene . . .” He took a deep breath. “Everything you do is to protect someone. Chris, or Ray, or . . . the memory of your brother. Who protects you? If you’re not careful, you’ll lose your soul to this job, it’ll eat you, and you’ll have nothing left.”

“Nonsense,” Gene said immediately. “I’ll have you.”

“I’m not going to be around forever.”

“Why, are you thinking of going somewhere?”

The quick question made Sam blink. “I . . .”

“Don’t.”

Nodding, Sam swallowed hard. He sat back, surprised to find tears in his eyes.

“And I don’t like that song,” Gene added savagely.